exercise

English Online Dictionary. What means exercise‎? What does exercise mean?

English

Alternative forms

• exercize (obsolete)
• exercice (obsolete, noun senses only)

Etymology

From Middle English exercise, from Old French exercise, from Latin exercitium.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɛk.sə.saɪz/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɛk.sɚ.saɪz/
  • Homophone: exorcise (one pronunciation)
• Hyphenation: ex‧er‧cise

Noun

exercise (countable and uncountable, plural exercises)

1. (countable) Any activity designed to develop or hone a skill or ability.
2. (countable, uncountable) Activity intended to improve physical, or sometimes mental, strength and fitness.
3. A setting in action or practicing; employment in the proper mode of activity; exertion; application; use.
   • December 8, 1801, Thomas Jefferson, first annual message

     exercise of the important function confided by the constitution to the legislature
4. The performance of an office, ceremony, or duty.
5. (obsolete) That which gives practice; a trial; a test.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

exercise (third-person singular simple present exercises, present participle exercising, simple past and past participle exercised)

1. To exert for the sake of training or improvement; to practice in order to develop.

2. (intransitive) To perform physical activity for health or training.

3. (transitive) To use (a right, an option, etc.); to put into practice.
4. (now often in passive) To occupy the attention and effort of; to task; to tax, especially in a painful or vexatious manner; harass; to vex; to worry or make anxious.
5. (obsolete) To set in action; to cause to act, move, or make exertion; to give employment to.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

See also

Further reading

• “exercise”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “exercise”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.